Cremations protested as Liberia's Ebola turmoil escalates

NEW YORK – Civil leaders in Liberia are protesting a presidential order to cremate people who die from the Ebola virus, saying it violates culture and tradition.

Protests have stepped up as the Liberian government also has moved to restrict public gatherings, cancel midterm senatorial elections and confiscate private property to create government-run public cemeteries.

The actions are based on powers President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf invoked in August to combat the Ebola outbreak surging across West Africa.

Sirleaf's order has resulted in the cremation of more than 1,000 Liberians from Monsterrado County alone, the region producing the bulk of the Ebola fatalities, according newspaper reports in the Liberian capital, Monrovia.

At a consultative meeting called by the Ministry of Internal Affairs -- with support from the Carter Center in Liberia, an institute in Atlanta, Georgia, established in partnership with Emory University by former President Jimmy Carter to promote peace and fight disease -- Zanzar Kawar, the head of the Liberian councils of chiefs and elders, argued that according to Liberian culture and tradition, it is abominable for a human corpse to be burned.

Internal Affairs Minister Morris Dukuly, speaking at the conference, countered that cremation of the Ebola-infected dead is a critical step that must be taken if the epidemic is to be contained. Traditional Liberian burial practices include washing and touching the dead at a time when the Ebola-infected corpses remain highly contagious.

Addressing the assembly via teleconference, Siatta Bishop, the chairwoman of the government's burial management team, explained cremation of the Ebola-infected dead will be especially important in the coming rainy season. At that time, the water table is expected to be high, and the virus in bodies exposed by the rain could spread.

Kawar, along with the dozens of Liberian chiefs and elders that attended the four-day Ebola prevention conference, unanimously agreed to unite in reluctant collaboration with Liberian government officials in eradicating Ebola from Liberia.

The cremation issue is likely to remain controversial in Liberia as Sirleaf's request to Liberia's National Legislature to restrict civil liberties and suspend portions of the nation's constitution met enough resistance within the legislature on Thursday to prevent the measure from reaching the floor of the Chamber of House of Representatives, Liberia's lower house in a bicameral legislature.

On Oct. 1, Sirleaf submitted to the Liberian legislature a letter calling for special governmental powers to restrict public gatherings while granting the government the authority to appropriate private property in an attempt to contain the Ebola epidemic.

On Aug. 6, Sirleaf's government imposed a three-month national state of emergency, warning the emergency could well call for suspending temporarily some constitutionally granted rights and privileges.

Outside the legislature Thursday, protesters sang slogans calling on the lawmakers not to grant Sirleaf the requested powers, Front Page Africa reported.

"I'm here to exercise my constitutional right," explained protestor J.V. Boimah. "The president wants the people that we elected to waive our rights to her. I believe that waving article 15 of the constitution to the president will be very detrimental and will lead us to another chaos and anarchy in this country."

Perhaps most controversial, Sirleaf explained in her letter that as a consequence of the measures taken under the state of emergency, the environment for free, open and transparent political discussion has become impossible, creating a condition that compelled the National Elections Commission to postpone the upcoming senatorial mid-term elections.

Regarding burial practices, Sirleaf explained in her letter the government has no choice but to confiscate private property to create public cemeteries under the management of government health authorities.

"We are advised by both national and international health authorities that the victims of the Ebola virus must be buried and laid to rest in isolated places and not in any ordinary public graveyard or cemetery," Sirleaf expressed in her letter to the legislature.

"Such a number of deaths we have seen and experienced present a problem as public cemetery is very few and inadequate. Therefore, the government of Liberia will use any available land in any town and inadequate."

On Wednesday, WND reported government officials in Liberia have taken steps to prevent journalists from reporting Ebola-related stories from health care centers in the country unless they obtain written permission from the government.